By now, Derek Jeter is used to hearing his name in rumors, how he dances with Jennifer Lopez and was getting ready to marry Mariah Carey. Still, the news that he was supposedly shot in Newark yesterday startled the All Star shortstop.

“This is the worst [rumor],” a bullet-free Jeter said before last night’s game against the Braves at Yankee Stadium. “Some of the rumors I have been in weren’t too bad.”

According to a radio station, Jeter was shot while attending a function at the Newark Bears’ stadium yesterday. And while Jeter was a passenger in Jorge Posada’s car heading to the Stadium after lunch, he actually heard a report of somebody named Jeter being shot and taken to a hospital.

“I didn’t hear the first name so I thought it was somebody else named Jeter,” said Jeter, who started last night’s action leading the AL in hitting with a .373 average. “I heard it, but I didn’t know it was me they were talking about.”

Posada had his radio tuned to 97.1 FM, which had apparently picked up the report from a New Jersey station.

“Shot, huh,” Jeter said more than once. “Sometime when you get shot, it takes a long time to feel it. I got shot today, golly.”

Not only was Jeter not shot, he wasn’t in Newark.

“I slept today, I got up at 1 o’clock,” Jeter said.

Jeter was stunned by the news but took it in stride.

“I hope nobody is planning to shoot me and let it out too early,” Jeter said. “I better call my mom. Did I live? They didn’t say where I got shot, did they?”

When the word of the erroneous report spread through the clubhouse, Jeter’s teammates howled.